Dear Everybody,
This is just a few short words because it has been a Bit Of A Day.
I am on the taxi rank, by myself. I have been by myself all night. This is just as well because I have had three customers, and declined one very drunk young woman whose boyfriend was promising her that they would get some more sniff when they got back to their hotel. She had vomited all down the front of her shirt, which was the reason for my reluctance, not any moral high ground about sniff, whatever sniff might be. Anyway, they must have walked, because there aren’t any other taxis.
I did not start until late, because we went out for the day, and so not only have I not earned much, I have not achieved anything either. This was my own fault. Mark was reluctant to take me with him, even though I hadn’t been sick down my shirt, because obviously every home needs somebody in it to mop the kitchen floor and change the sheets.
I couldn’t have gone to work any earlier because he was taking my taxi, so that couldn’t be helped.
He was going on an expedition to procure a new engine for his taxi. We had sourced one in Bradford, which the chap had promised was complete with all bits, and for which he wanted some utterly extortionate price. We talked him down a bit and collected absolutely every penny that we had, including the two pound coin collection, the bag of spare change for taxi emergencies, and the money we had been saving for next Christmas.
Then we set off to Bradford.
When we got there it was some Asians in a scrapyard. They were young and hostile and wanted more than they had said on the phone, which Mark declined. Then he examined the engine which had an utterly vital bit missing.
The chap said that this bit would have been extra, and Mark had not asked about it on the phone. Mark said that he had, which I knew was true because I was there, but offered to purchase the engine at a lower price and try and find the missing bit somewhere else.
The chap was unmoveable, so we told him to stuff it and drove away.
We had hardly got around the corner when he telephoned with a newly-negotiated price, which Mark accepted.
He loaded the engine into the back of the car whilst I tried to find the vital bit on the mighty Internet.
They are rare bits. Eventually I found one – the only one on the whole of the mighty Internet – and we rang the bloke. He said he was in Rotherham, and agreed to sell it to us for just a hundred and forty pounds more than we had got.
We got the remains of the cash out of next month’s electricity bill fund and drove to Rotherham, by which time it was half past five.
This chap was an Asian as well, but a smiley one with a nice girlfriend, and accepted several bags of change without remark.
We set off back with no money whatsoever and a car full of rusty bits of engine. It is supposed to be a good one and obviously the chap was trustworthy.
We did not get back home until eight o’clock at night.
I had got to go to work then, because we need some money for cheese and orange juice and carrots tomorrow. Mark could not have gone to work anyway, because of not having a taxi and having an engine dangling off a crane in the back alley. I hope no traffic wardens go past. They get very grumpy about things like that.
Still things are looking up. It is Bank Holiday this weekend and we will make some money now that Mark can get his taxi fixed, and maybe even some of it will be two pound coins.
All the same, it has been a Day.
I wish I was in bed.
